Health

Breath analysis represents a diagnostic technique which can provide information beyond conventional analysis of blood and urine e.g. NO-testing for asthma. Advantages of breath tests are that they are non-invasive, painless and do typically not require trained personnel for sampling.

Hundreds of different substances are present in human breath depending on nutrition, metabolic state including diseases and medication, microbial infections and personal oral hygiene. The appearance or absence of specific metabolites can be used for early diagnosis and their presence for therapy control when identified relevant for a particular disease or medication.
Several research studies show that gas chromatographs-ion mobility spectrometers (GC-IMS) due to their selectivity and sensitivity are suitable instruments for measuring volatile organic compounds (VOC) in exhaled air that are related to intoxications and diseases.